Ugly interrogation

Day: 176-183 Stage three / total expedition days 567-574

Sunrise:
05:33-05:30

Sunset:
18:39-18:42

Total kilometers:
5771 Km

Temperature - Day (maximum):
39°-41° degrees, sun approx. 59°-63°

Temperature - Night:
17°-19° degrees

Latitude:
23°18'28.1"

Longitude:
144°22'24.5"

Bimbah-Camp – 08.11.2002 – 15.11.2002

It is 08:40 when a jeep actually stops in front of the homestead. “The inspector’s here!” I shout to Tanja, who is doing the dishes in the kitchen. I quickly walk through the big house, open the door and see the officer and another man getting out of the jeep. “Good afternoon,” I say, walking towards the two men in a friendly manner. “Hello,” they greet me. As we are only guests here, I don’t know if I can invite our visitors into the house. Jenny and Rowley are both out. I think about it for a while and come to the conclusion that I can’t leave them out here in the scorching hot sun. “Please come in,” I say, and they follow me into the house. The inspector takes off his colorful patterned cowboy boots and places them in front of the door. Then we sit down at the round table next to the stately living room. “Would you like a coffee or tea?” Tanja asks. “No thanks,” they both reply. As with the last conversation, I feel the clamp of discomfort around my neck again.

“Well, I spoke to a colleague from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. He told me that he had already examined your camels in 1999. However, he also told me that he had informed you about the need to request a health permit when crossing the border. Why didn’t you tell me during my visit to your camp that you knew about this?” Shocked by the question asked in a serious interrogative tone, it takes me a few moments to get the answer off my chest. “We told you about having a permit from Western Australia to the Northern Territory. Jo arranged that for us back then.” “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve written down all your answers,” she bangs across the table. “I don’t understand the questions. We don’t have a permit from the Northern Territory to Queensland. We’ve already said that.” “Why not?” “Because we stopped thinking about it. On an expedition like this, it’s a matter of survival almost every day. We didn’t think about getting another permit. As I mentioned, there are no borders out there. Millions of camels cross the so-called borderline every day.” “Nevertheless, these animals remain isolated in the desert. With your border crossing, diseases can be transmitted into cattle country.” “I always thought Australian camels had no diseases?” “There are some, and they can carry them. So why didn’t you take care of the health certificate if you already knew about it?” “Because we didn’t think about it anymore.” “I think you’re kidding me!” the cutting voice hammers. “You know that I can confiscate your camels immediately and take you to court. You have acted illegally! We have a lot of power, more than the police. We can even go into any house without a search warrant,” he continues to threaten us.

I can feel it boiling inside me. How great anger rises up and I begin to despise this man for the deepest reasons of my heart. He already asked us all these questions at the camp and repeated them several times here. Last time he reassured us with the words: “I haven’t heard anything about the health permit,” and now he’s really beating us up about it. “So why are you lying to me?” “We’re not lying to you. What reason would we have to lie to you?” Tanja replies.

“Where is the permit to cross the border from Western Australia to the Northern Territory?” he continues his interrogation. “As I said, we no longer carry it with us. I think it’s in Germany or with Jo. It’s at least a year old anyway. If you don’t believe us about the permit, it’s not difficult for you to find out if it was really issued. I mean, you found the inspector from Kalgoorlie and his inspection was over three years ago.”

There is a short pause. The officer’s colleague is also an animal inspector. I can’t help but feel that this brash interrogation is making him uncomfortable.

“Why did you cross the border without papers?” the man is now pestering his questions across the table for the umpteenth time. If he wants to confiscate our camels, then let him do it, I think to myself. I’m slowly running out of strength to cope with such interim cases and I can feel the old weakness coming back. How the few drops of energy that have dripped into the tank in the last few days are completely sucked away by the ugly conversation.

“We can’t tell you any more than we’ve already said. Things are going round in circles. Our expedition is something positive. I can’t understand this interrogation.” “Leave that out of it. It doesn’t matter whether your expedition is positive or not. We’ll stick to the fact of what you did,” he interrupts me angrily, tapping his finger loudly on the table. “We can go on and on answering the same questions, but what’s the point? We have made a mistake. What are the consequences now? What can we do?” Tanja interjects.

“I’m sorry to have put you in a corner. We are often lied to in our jobs. I just wanted to find out if your answers are the same in a stressful situation. Many people start crying or do everything they can to convince me. Don’t worry any more, I’ll issue you with all the necessary papers now,’ he suddenly replies in a honeyed voice, which makes me think I’m watching the wrong movie. “I’d like a cup of coffee now,” he tries to lighten the mood as he fills out the important papers.

We talk for another half hour about one episode or another in our lives. He tells of his time as a quarantine officer and how a French captain almost detained him on his ship. It’s a casual conversation, but I feel crushed by this game of cat and mouse. “Are you still giving interviews in the next few days?” the inspector suddenly asks. “Yes.” “You can call them my name. Tell them what a nice man I am, ha, ha, ha.” We are glad when the two inspectors finally say goodbye. Afterwards, we sit back in our chairs and ask ourselves which cyclone has just washed our heads?

Days later we feel better again. I start writing down our experiences and give many interviews to radio stations all over Queensland. We receive journalists and the daily newspaper. Our lives are starting to sparkle again.

Our hosts make it very easy for us to spend our time here productively and enjoyably. Rowley and I were able to work out almost the entire route to the coast. We are now also talking about selling our camels. The ABC radio stations help us to inform the population about this. So far we have not received any real offers but we still hope to find good owners for our boys. “How do you cope with that thought?” Steve Martin from ABC Rockhampton asks me. “It’s going to be tough. Our hearts are cramping, but it’s still too early to talk about it. There are still 700 kilometers of bushland ahead of us,” I reply. “How long will it take you?” “I don’t know Steve. If everything goes well, maybe six to seven weeks?” “I and the listeners wish you good luck. We’ll hear from you?” “Sure,” I reply, putting the phone down and hoping to have built up enough strength to get through the next few weeks in one piece and with lots of fun.

Due to the many events of the last few weeks and our lack of energy, I forgot what Rufus thought about the exhausting time. The best way to find out is to rummage through his diary. But how can I find this well-hidden book here on the farm? It’s not easy to track down this well-kept secret document in our camps, but on the large farm grounds? Thoughtfully, I go into the barn where we have stored all our equipment. If I were a dog, I would hide it here somewhere in all the chaos. I circle the bags and pouches with alert eyes, but unfortunately I can’t see anything. For Rufus it is of course easy to hide such a small book. There are countless possibilities here. After a quarter of an hour, I slowly lose interest. It’s not in or under the equipment, that’s for sure. I give myself another chance and check under the compressor. Not a chance. Then I take a look in and under the small generator, the motorcycles and the tool bench. This time I give up and leave the barn. In a bad mood over my failure, I kick a motorcycle helmet lying on the dusty ground. He tilts to one side and I can’t believe my eyes. The diary of an expedition dog lies right at my feet. I can’t believe he actually hid it in the helmet, I think and pick it up.

THE EXPEDITION DIARY OF AN EXPEDITION DOG NAME RUFUS

When we arrived at Westerton Station, I thought I wasn’t looking properly when I saw the beautiful young dog Alice! Wow, it was a real pleasure to watch her jump onto the back of the Ute… What happened next defies description. I thought I’d keep the cute Alice on the back of the jeep a little company and jumped up to her energetically, flexing my muscles. Not in 100 years could I have imagined that such a delicate female dog could become so wild! I was back down faster than I came up and I clearly understood that this was her Jeep… Okay, okay, I’ll be able to wait until we get to the east coast and I have my own car again, the good old Ford.

I loved Westerton, where I spent the whole day lying on the pleasantly cool cement floor, stretching out my paws, sleeping wonderfully and dreaming.

The time came to leave and we had to move on. I was in good spirits after sleeping for about six days in a row… The rude awakening came at the next camp. My beef shoulder bone from Marion Downs was not included. As long as I waited, neither Denis nor Tanja could get my bone out of one of the saddlebags. Of course I confronted my people. I made it quite clear to them that it couldn’t be that I had been training them for over three years and they still hadn’t learned to reliably pack and unpack my bones. My humans may have defended themselves. The bone was no longer there. Apparently another dog or dingo grabbed him when he was just lying around in the rest camp… What a shame!

The following days of running were simply hot and dry. I spent a lot of time on my unloved dog leash and swallowed the dust from passing cars. Hardie wasn’t supposed to carry so much weight, so I had to walk. The big day when we were to walk through Longreach was getting closer and closer… We were all very excited and hoped that the bustle and noise of the small town wouldn’t scare us too much. Thank goodness it went really well. A friendly person even gave us a plastic bottle of frozen water. It was just unbelievably good when I got ice-cold water in my bowl. My humans must really love me if they share such treasures with me.

The arrival on Bimbah was a real hit! After the camels were unloaded, we all went to the dam for a drink. I couldn’t hold on any longer and plunged straight into the wet waters. I swam and drank and drank and drank at the same time. When I had cooled down enough, I threw myself on the floor to take another extensive dust bath. The dried mud stuck to my fur for days and earned me many a new nickname.

Well, and the best thing is that I don’t have to be on a chain here on Bimbah. There are no poisonous dingo baits here. I have a lot of fun with the farm dogs, Amy, Flow, Bugsy, Scouter and Jack. Wooppy, the little Jack Russell dog, also comes out of the house from time to time and plays with us.

Boy, boy, do I see light at the end of the tunnel again! It seemed like I had lived a whole dog’s life since we left Westerton and now I have a fantastic dog’s life again. I am happy to be an expedition dog…